#DailyDevotion O LORD, Guard My Fingers From Typing Evil Things
Psalm 141 I call You, O LORD; hurry to help me. Listen to me when I call You. 2May my prayer be set as incense before You, and the raising of my hands as an evening sacrifice. 3O LORD, set a guard on my mouth, guard the door of my lips. 4Don’t let my mind be inclined to talk of evil or to become involved with wickedness with people who are evildoers; don’t let me eat their delicacies. 5When a righteous person strikes me — it’s a kindness; when he corrects me — it is oil for the head. Let not my head refuse it. But I will keep on praying against their evil deeds. 6When their judges are thrown down from the sides of a cliff, then they will listen to what I say — it will sound pleasant. 7Their bones will lie scattered at the opening of the grave, like something broken and shattered on the ground. 8But I look to You, Lord GOD; I go to You for shelter, O God; protect my life. 9Keep me from the trap they set for me and the snares of those who do wrong. 10May the wicked fall into their own nets while I escape.
This psalm, verses 1-4, 8 are used as the evening psalm in evening prayer service. This makes sense as the last words of verse 2 are “evening sacrifice.” There were in the Israelite daily worship morning and evening sacrifices. The whole of this psalm may have been used in Israelite worship at the evening one. It is a good thought to have in the evening.
It opens with calling upon the LORD to hurry to help him and to listen to him when he calls. This expectation is born of faith. It comes from the promise the LORD gives throughout scripture to use His name to call upon Him for help in every circumstance of life and His promise to listen to us when we pray. Our prayers to Him are like the sweet incense they burned in the Temple. In Rev. 5 it is said, “the 24 elders bowed down before the Lamb, each holding a lyre and all had gold bowls full of incense (which are the prayers of the holy people).” Incense represented the prayers of God’s people going up to heaven. It is a shame we have quit using this physical representation of our prayers in the churches these days.
Now come the petitions. David asks the LORD to guard his mouth and the door of his lips. O that we prayed this more often. How much trouble could we avoid by keeping our mouths shut and our fingers from typing when on the internet. We might ask the LORD to help us to use the scroll feature of our mouse. He petitions the LORD to not let his mind be inclined to talk evil and to prevent him from joining the activities of evil doers. James says in ch. 3, “6The tongue is a fire, a world of wrong! Set among the parts of our body, the tongue soils the whole body and enflames the course of life as it gets its fire from hell. . . 8But no one can tame the tongue — a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” No one can probably control their fingers behind a keyboard also on the internet. Perhaps we should pray this before logging in, particularly at night! So we join with David asking the LORD to curb the evil that is within us, in our minds and also to guard our tongues, our lips, our mouths and our keyboards.
We also need help from the LORD to keep ourselves from joining in with the wicked. What they do often looks like fun. But their fun is demonic. They do not see how they are hurting themselves when they set about to hurt others. We need help not to partake of their delicacies. If he is actually speaking of food here, he may be referring to food offered up to idols. But I think he is being more metaphorical here and these refer to the things the wicked amuse themselves with. Perhaps it is gossip. Maybe it is little things that irritate other people. Some people take pleasure in just jacking people around, small but hurtful pranks. I know people amuse themselves by starting arguments with people on social sites on the internet. We need the LORD’s help in not joining them. We would be well remember the positive aspect of the eighth commandment, “defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.”
Heavenly Father, grant us Your Holy Spirit that our minds, tongue, lips, mouth and fingers be guarded against participating in evil but rather we may use these things to call upon You and praise You and blessing to our neighbor. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.